


Medical Textbooks Are Not Appropriate for Small Children

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Childhood, Deaf Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And that was the day Ierian Sparatus started on the path to being the family disappointment, aka getting a law degree and becoming the councilor in a family full of doctors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Medical Textbooks Are Not Appropriate for Small Children

**Author's Note:**

> Ierian is the name of the turian who eventually becomes the Councilor Sparatus we meet in-game. Text _«like this»_ indicates communication in sign language.

“Mom’s home, Mom’s home!” Ierian’s sister squawked, practically flying over the couch and almost whacking Ierian upside the head with her foot in her haste to run and greet their mother.

He yelped and ducked, face hitting his knees as he doubled over. _“Mommy!”_ he howled, popping back up once he heard his sister’s toe-claws on the floor. “Cori kicked me!”

“I did _not! Mom!_ Ierian’s trying to get me in trouble!”

From the door, his mother sighed. “Why do you never ask for your father?”

“Daddy’s got his ears off.”

There was a long silence, then a piece of fabric went flying across the apartment to smack his father in the face. His father shook his head, startled, then glanced around, figured out what happened, and reached up under his crest to turn his hearing aid back on. “Hi, dearie, how was work?” he said with a cheeky wiggle of his mandibles.

Ierian’s mother snorted and folded her arms. “Aren’t you supposed to keep that _on_ when you’re watching the kids?”

He blinked, then he reached across the couch to gently cuff Ierian around the back of his head. “What did I say about telling Mommy?” he chided, subvocals quietly assuring him he wasn’t actually angry.

Ierian whined and ducked his head anyway. “Sorry!”

He hummed and scratched him behind the mandible. “You’re fine, kiddo,” he said, his voice awkward and not quite perfect. Mommy had said he tried very hard, but he still wasn’t quite used to the sound of his own voice just yet. “Here, give me your book, and you can go say hello to your mother.”

He obediently handed over the picture book he’d been struggling through, then got to his feet and clambered across the couch (and his father, who let out a little laugh that was cut off by a grunt as Ierian put a small foot on his stomach to steady himself), hopped off the coffee table, and landed clumsily on the rocking chair his mother sat in in the evenings. He gripped the back tightly, trying to get his wobbling legs to steady, then shook his head and chirped up at his mother. “Mommy!”

She looked down at him, holding her default terse expression for just a moment before it melted into a smile and she leaned down to be on eye-level with him. “Hi, sweetie,” she cooed, touching her nose to his. “How’s Mommy’s favorite five-year-old?”

He giggled and headbutted her playfully. She purred, then straightened up and scooped him into her arms. “How was school?”

His stubby mandibles flicked skyward, but before he could respond, his sister, apparently fed up with waiting for attention, blurted out, “ _My_ class started the anatomy unit in science today.”

His mother turned to look at her, mandibles fluttering good-naturedly. “Did you, now?” she hummed. “Did you tell them your mom’s a doctor?”

Coracia nodded proudly, puffing out her chest. “Teacher asked me to ask you to come in and talk to our class! Uh, if you have time.”

Ierian’s mother laughed, and he felt it reverberate through her chest as he hooked his talons over her cowl’s edge. “I’d love to, dear. I’ll see if I have time, okay? Did you finish your homework?”

Coracia deflated. “Um… Dad helped me with the civics stuff, but he said we should wait for you to help with science…”

His mother raised a brow plate, then nodded and shifted Ierian so he clung to the back of her cowl. “Okay, let’s see.”

Coracia trotted to the kitchen, and their mother trailed after, pausing just long enough to affectionately brush her thumb behind Ierian’s father’s mandible as she passed. Ierian rested his head on the back of her cowl and briefly considered trying to count the bumps in his mother’s spinal plates before deciding that was boring and simply closed his eyes. Mommy walked with a very steady, even gait, slow and purposeful, and had a tendency to lull him into a nap even when he was agitated.

Unfortunately, by the time he’d started to slow his breathing, they’d already reached the kitchen, and Mommy was carefully prying him off her cowl. “Come on, baby, you can’t be back there right now,” she hummed, setting him down on the kitchen table and absently adjusting his tunic. “Sit quiet for a few minutes, okay?”

He bobbed his head, already reaching for his sister’s book bag. Maybe he’d get lucky and she’d forgotten to eat her snack.

While he pawed at Coracia’s bag, his mother drifted to the cupboards and started rooting around, pulling out ingredients for dinner. “So what’s the issue, Cori?”

His sister took a seat and spread out her papers, giving Ierian a dirty look when he instinctively interpreted a book nudging his leg as “this is yours now” and snatched it away. He hadn’t found any snack, but that was okay. Mommy was making dinner, and it was fun to annoy Cori by taking her things.

Trying to peel his stubborn little claws off her book, Coracia told their mother, “We’re starting with the internal skeleton, but I couldn’t remember how the plates attach, and Dad didn’t know.”

Their mother hummed thoughtfully. “Oh, that’s easy enough. Give me a minute, I’ll go find one of my books. The words will be a bit too technical for you, but it has pictures. I can explain whatever you don’t get. Ierian, _no_ , we’ve talked about this,” she added sharply, motioning for him to let go of Coracia’s book.

With a sulky huff, he relinquished his prize, then reached for the box of colored pencils Coracia had been using to color in a diagram instead. Nobody could yell at him for coloring, at least not if he did it on blank paper. “Mommy, what’s for dinner?”

“Food, sweetheart. Be patient, Mommy’s helping Cori.” She rubbed the back of his head, then left the kitchen, disappearing around the corner.

Annoyed, Ierian folded his legs underneath himself and stared intently at the corner, willing her to make it quick. Mostly, he just wanted to play their game where she drew an outline for him and he colored it in and made up the details, but he also wanted a better answer than “food.” He _also_ also hadn’t gotten to tell her what _he’d_ done at school yet. Stupid Cori.

Thankfully, his mother apparently knew exactly where she was looking, because she was sauntering back around the corner in minutes, a metal box clutched in one hand. “Okay, here,” she said, setting it down and tapping a few keys on the interface to bring up a holo-screen. “Ierian, come here, sitting like that will scuff the table,” she scolded, reaching over to pick him up by the back of his cowl and hold him next to her keel with her arm around his torso.

He whined and squirmed, knocking his head against her cowl to show his displeasure. He _hated_ being little. He couldn’t wait until he was Cori’s size. _Cori_ didn’t get picked up and carried everywhere like a very active doll.

His mother ignored him for the most part, only putting a hand on his head to hold him still. He huffed and settled, idly trying to get his legs to fold neatly underneath him and using his mother’s thigh for purchase. Above his head, his mother and sister continued talking like he wasn’t there, using big words he didn’t understand. He could hear the datapad Cori used for homework beeping, and assumed she was entering in answers as Mommy explained.

Once he’d finished arranging his legs, he looked up, only to squawk and resume struggling in his mother’s grip, trying to get away from the pictures currently on display. Bare bones, peeled-apart muscle, and enough blood and tendons and other things to make his stomach churn. It was _bad,_ and _wrong,_ and people were _hurt_ for those pictures, and he didn't know how but he had to get away _right now_.

His mother, startled, almost dropped him, then hastily tightened her grip and turned so she was between him and the pictures. “Ierian, shh, shh! It’s okay, what’s wrong?”

His subvocals rang with panic. “I don’t like those pictures!” he whined, trying to get free from his mother’s arm. “Pumme down!”

His cowl thrummed with his mother’s soothing, yet still alarmed, subvocals as she hummed, “Shh, Ierian, it’s okay, those people are fine, they’re okay…”

“Not the _dead ones!”_

She sighed and stood up, cradling him to her cowl and walking out of the kitchen. “I don’t understand, Ierian, you don’t mind when stuff like that is on your plate.”

“Food’s not _people!”_

 She hummed some more, rubbing his back. “I see. It’s okay, it’s okay, calm down, sweetheart. You don’t have to look at the pictures.” She carried him around the couch and added, “Do you want to sit with Daddy for a bit while Mommy helps Cori?”

He snuffled and nodded, and his mother came to a stop in front of his father. “Triadim?”

His father glanced up from the datapad he’d been reading, then blinked and reached up to turn his hearing aid back on, making one of the hand gestures he and Mommy talked with sometimes.

“Ierian got upset by some pictures in my books. Could you take him for a bit?”

His father nodded and set the datapad down, then reached up to accept Ierian from his mother and pull him to rest gently against his cowl. “Hey, kiddo,” he said quietly, automatically rumbling calming subvocals. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

Satisfied, his mother turned and walked off, and Ierian pressed his face against his father’s keelbone with a soft whine. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Daddy whispered, reaching up to scratch gently behind his mandibles. “Tell the truth, I don’t really like all that blood and guts and stuff, either.”

Ierian snuffled and looked up at him. “You don’t?”

“Nah. Hunting’s one thing, but people?” He shook his head. “I like my job better. Nice and clean.”

Ierian rubbed at his nose and shifted so he was a bit more comfortable in his father’s grasp. His father hummed and gave him a gentle hug. “I was going to go grocery shopping after dinner so your mom could get some rest. You want to come with?”

Ierian considered. “Just you and me?”

His father smiled. “Sure. Just you and me. No mean big sisters allowed.” He tapped Ierian’s nasal plates, prompting a small giggle, then moved, uncrossing his legs and re-crossing them with the opposite leg on top. “Hey, you want to hear a funny story from work?”

* * *

Ierian yawned and shook his head, then continued neatly folding his robes, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles around the Council emblem hiding the clasp. It had been a very long day, what with the inauguration, the afterparty, and all the incessant interviews, and he very dearly wanted to just collapse into bed then and there, but he couldn’t bring himself to just leave his new robes in a wrinkled heap on the floor. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to leave his wife to take care of three children on her own for the evening. Maybe he’d just pass out on the couch with the baby.

His omni-tool chirped at him, and he suppressed a sigh. Figured. He checked the caller ID, then drifted over to his terminal and connected to the vidcomm. As his father’s image flickered into view, he took a seat and started signing. _«Hey, Dad.»_

His father smiled and responded in kind. _«Ierian! Your mother and I watched the ceremony on the news. Teia looked so lovely. Verres looked a lot better than the last time we saw him, I’m glad he’s getting over that pneumonia. Callie’s getting big, too.»_

Ierian managed a weak smile. _«I’ll pass the word along.»_

_«Thank you. Your mother traded shifts with a friend so she’d be free to watch the ceremony, so she’s sleeping at the moment, but she wanted me to tell you she’s very proud. We both are.»_

A warm, soft feeling flickered in Ierian’s chest, and his smile grew. _«Thanks, Dad. That means a lot.»_ Flicking one mandible down teasingly, he added, _«Does that mean Mom’s going to stop lamenting me not going to medical school?»_

His father grinned, mandibles fluttering in amusement. _«Oh, no, I doubt that. That’s what you get for being born into a family of doctors, I’m afraid.»_

_«Figures. I’ll get her sooner or later.»_


End file.
